Texas Judge Pittman Wants Proof Lawsuits Belong in His Courtroom

A Texas federal judge is now asking parties to prove that their cases belong in his courtroom after a high-profile back-and-forth with the Fifth Circuit over whether a national lawsuit should be heard there.

US District Judge Mark Pittman, one of two active judges in the Northern District of Texas’s Fort Worth division, said in a recent update to his requirements that parties sometimes file cases there “with no factual nexus to the Division.”

Pittman said that for any case without an “obvious factual nexus” to the division, he will order the party behind the lawsuit to explain the connection to it. He said he will then determine whether the case should be transferred to “a more appropriate division.” He said his court will screen for such situations when the parties submit a join status report.

It’s unclear exactly when the change was made. A March 6 archived version of Pittman’s court website shows no venue requirement.

Pittman, a Donald Trump appointee, last year twice tried to transfer out of his court a challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s $8 cap on fees for late payments on credit card bills. But the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed his orders both times.

Pittman last week granted a request by the banking groups behind the lawsuit and the CFPB — now controlled by the Trump administration — to vacate the credit card late-fee rule.

Pittman hears nearly half of all cases filed in Fort Worth. US District Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, is assigned the bulk of all other cases there, while Senior US District Judge Terry Means — tapped by George H.W. Bush — takes on 10% of the division’s civil litigation and 14% of its criminal cases.

The Northern District of Texas has come under scrutiny for its single-judge or small divisions, as conservative litigants flooded the court with challenges to the Biden administration. Critics said those divisions lead to “judge-shopping,” or parties filing cases where they think they’re most likely to have a case assigned to a sympathetic court.

The federal judiciary’s policy-making body last year urged courts to act against judge shopping, but that push is non-binding. The Northern District of Texas — which says it’s the “largest land area district in the country,” with the exception of state-wide districts — has not taken action in response to the judiciary’s move.